Nightmare Paragraph About a Man I Forgot
by whydowefall
Summary: ‘Snapshot: A three-by-five black and white.’ Remus Lupin’s entire life can be defined by snapshots.


**Title: **Nightmare ParagraphAbout a Man I Forgot

**Rating: **PG-13

**Fandom:** Harry Potter

**Summary: **_'Snapshot: A three-by-five black and white.' _Remus Lupin's entire life can be defined by snapshots.

**Time Period: **During Deathly Hallows, written before it. Deal with it.

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Notes: **Despite what the name suggests, this will not all be one paragraph, because that would drive both you and me crazy. The title is a variant of _'Nightmare run-on paragraph about a woman I forget.'_, which is one of the titles of the _'Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind' _plays, by the Neo-Futurists. If you have never heard of these, you should most definitely check them out.

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_Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast though seen the doors of the shadow of death?_

_Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all._

_Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?_

_-Job 38: 17-19_

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**Nightmare ParagraphAbout a Man I Forgot**

Snapshot: A three-by-five black and white. Four boys on a bed, piled two on top of each other, laughing. The picture moves, of course, and they wave and attempt to push each other out of the way and make funny faces, and Remus Lupin had to smile. The corner was folded over, and the picture was almost faded sepia. He had come to realize that the bottom of his trunk is not the safest place to put his memories.

He pulled out another picture. Three-by-five color. This time, two boys with black hair stand in the center, arms around each other in congratulations, their graduation robes swaying in an invisible breeze. James and Sirius looked so tall and handsome, and Remus was proud of them. Occasionally, a finger would slip into the picture, and the two boys would make faces in protest. He never had been very good at photography.

A few wedding pictures, where James and Lily are happy, and then there are a few more graduation pictures, where everyone is happy. There is Peter, looking shy and kissing Audrey Mooreland on the cheek under the mistletoe, and Sirius kissing a slightly intoxicated Professor McGonagall on the lips for no real reason at all, and one taken by Sirius of Remus dancing with his cousin Andromeda.

In all of the pictures, everyone is smiling. This was the time when the little things mattered, and not the war. Not death. Death was something they read about in story books and heard about on the news, and no one believed that it could happen to them.

Sirius was dead. James and Lily were dead. His parents, everyone's parents, were all dead. There was nowhere that the war hadn't touched. Even those with the Death Eaters had lost family members, and they cried the exact same tears as those in the Order, or the Ministry, or just civilians.

This was a stupid war, over a stupid man's ambitions. This was the classic war between 'good' and 'evil', regardless of how you defined them, and it would end in a very classic way. More death.

Remus Lupin was tired of death.

The pile of photographs on his bed were pictures of the dead. Even Andromeda wasn't so blessed to escape the worst wave of casualties. She had left behind only a daughter, a few pictures, and a burn mark on a large tapestry pocked with death.

Three-by-five in color. This was the four Marauders crowded around the Marauder's Map. Each held a quill to the paper, as if this were an official signing. James was playing with his glasses with one hand, and Sirius twirled his quill between his fingers. Peter was just beaming, and waving. Remus had his wand out, and was delivering the final touch. This was one of the happiest moments in their lives.

And the worst. Five-by-seven in color, though the only colors are black and brown and red. Maybe it would have been more striking in black and white. Two small, brass urns, each with another photograph in front of it. The right one is of Lily, lying in bed with Harry curled up beside her, and the left is James doing the dishes in a small, pink apron. This is the only picture that doesn't move.

Remus Lupin crumpled the picture in his hand and tossed it across the room.

A clock chimes five. Three minutes later, another tells him that it's one. All around the room, on every surface, forty-two clocks tell him a different time, and none of them are right. He has no need to know the correct time. And even though it's three in the morning and he hasn't slept yet again, time doesn't matter. And even though the full moon is tonight, and he will be sit in this same room and break all these clocks against the walls, time doesn't matter.

Tomorrow, he will buy forty-two new clocks, and set them all to different times.


End file.
